ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Mission Network) — Surrounded by old row houses and busy streets, empty urban lots are being turned into flowering bits of paradise in an attempt to beautify neighborhoods and build community.

“You wouldn’t believe what was here before,” community member and volunteer Blanche Cook said of her neighborhood garden in North Lawndale, Chicago. She describes the pile of rubble, rocks and holes that used to grace the lot. Now the space is a garden featuring African flora and will make its vegetable debut this summer.

“The reason behind all this was to have a gathering place,” said Velma Johnson, a retired postal worker who volunteers to coordinate upkeep of 12 city gardens in conjunction with the Openlands Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing public open space in northeastern Illinois.

“Working alongside someone in the garden is a way in which I feel connected,” said Barbara Baumgartner, who spent the past year as an urban gardener in Topeka through Mennonite Voluntary Service. Volunteers at the peace center in St. Louis also spend time digging in the dirt, helping children and adults connect with creation and build community with people around them.

Raised beds in another Chicago garden make gardening accessible to the older residents of the neighborhood who enjoy working and relaxing there.

“The garden brings the neighbors closer together,” said Willie Marks, a retired medical photographer who now works in the garden nearly every day, weed whip harmonizing with the elevated train just a block away. “It adds a little beauty to the neighborhood — a little greenery instead of just dirt.”

The Openlands Project’s Neighborhood Youth Garden Corps hires local teenagers to care for the gardens. Zikyia Thompson, 16, said the job is hard and hot, but she loves the friendships that have been formed in just two weeks on the job. Deon Terry, 15, said he didn’t even know Thompson until they began working on the same crew, but now “she’s like a sister to me.”

The local youths get a chance to meet out-of-towners nearly every day when young volunteers through the DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection) program join them. This Christian Service program of Mennonite Mission Network offers organized urban experiences, service, worship and reflection for groups and individuals from all denominations. DOOR also operates in Atlanta, Denver, Miami and San Antonio.

According to Krista Dutt, director of DOOR Chicago, mixing work teams with Chicago youths allows the teens glimpses into each other’s lives, creating an even broader community.

“I would do this again in a heartbeat,” said Methodist youth sponsor Cheryl Lowry, who traveled with her youth group from Oklahoma City to spend a week serving in Chicago.

The St. Louis Mennonite Peace Center has used gardening as tool for teaching peacemaking. At the request of a local school, peace center volunteer Mary Hellwig coordinated the beginning of a school and community garden.

Hellwig said many children in the neighborhood solve problems through physical fights, and at first would try to kill every garden bug or earthworm. But the Columbia Peace and Hope Garden is a no-fight zone, and she said, “There are a lot of happy faces in the garden.”

Following the suicide of a fifth-grader last school year, the garden provided a healing place for many of the boy’s classmates. They planted a tree in his memory and presented songs and poetry for its dedication. The garden became a safe place for the children to talk about their own losses to violent deaths.

Vandalism and littering in the neighborhood have decreased since the garden was planted, Hellwig said — a sign that the children and other neighbors have begun taking ownership of their community.

“We had an artificial rock covering some pipes that was stolen, but then it was returned,” Hellwig said. “That means someone saw it and knew where it belonged and told [the person who stole it] to bring it back.”

Baumgartner had the opportunity to work with both children and adult gardeners. In a local school, she focused her time on individual students who each had a raised bed in the school’s garden lot.

“At first, so many of them were pretty ignorant about how plants grow. They would go out and see the green tops of carrots, and I would tell them what they were. They’d say, ‘But carrots are orange,’” Baumgartner said.

By the end of the school year, the children could identify the vegetables growing, and were eager to learn more about the small ecosystems of their plots. Besides the educational aspect of gardening, Baumgartner gave her students the undivided attention many craved.

Baumgartner also prepared recipes for seniors with produce grown in the Southern Hills Mennonite Church’s community garden, and volunteered to work in a garden at a day-care facility for people with developmental disabilities.

“They’re pleased with themselves that they can grow vegetables, and it’s gratifying to pick tomatoes from the vine that they planted,” she said.